The essays in this thesis are concerned to study the potential linkages between Firms' business strategies and how the exploitation of intellectual assets determines the way innovation can help in building competitive advantages and increasing firm value. In particular, I focus on the different strategies employed by firms to exploit the value created by innovation, examining how market uncertainty and complementary assets affect commercialization decisions. The first chapter of the thesis develops a theoretical model that studies the decision to commercialize as an option to invest. The second chapter is an empirical test to find how market uncertainty can affect the likelihood that a disembodied patent will be licensed. Finally the last chapter studies how knowledge spillovers affect the value of patented inventions.